


Walk Through the Fire

by naienko



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: First Person, Gen, Self-Insert, Unfinished, What am I doing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-05
Updated: 2011-03-05
Packaged: 2017-11-01 03:59:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naienko/pseuds/naienko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The teens who became the X-men aren't the only mutants Charles Xavier contacted. He's not the only psychic in the world ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walk Through the Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Self-insert. Yes, I'm ashamed of myself.

The mansion was huge.

It was a reaction I hadn't expected to have. I mean, I've been to Canterbury, and Chichen Itza, places that dwarf humanity into insignificance even as they remind us of our magnificence. Nothing I'd ever seen had touched me like this. I don't know what I had expected.

It was terrifying. 

But fear is an emotion I possess an intimate familiarity with. Taking a deep breath, I laid my palms together, then drew them apart on an exhale. Flames licked up from each palm, and I could taste the fear bring burned away, a kind of bitterness in the back of my mind.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. No fear.

I stepped up to the door and knocked.  
~*~*~

It was obscurely comforting to be greeted without fanfare. Such a place should have bustling maids, or a cool housekeeper; instead, a curly-haired young man -- a boy, really, shy and lanky -- asked my name, awkwardly asked my business, and left me alone in a sunlit, formally appointed room. I rubbed my hands together again, closed my eyes to better taste the wash of emotions sliding through me. Thread by thread, I spread them out in my mind. _This_ to the boy, hurrying off elsewhere in the house: confusion/curiosity, a breath of haste, overlaid on slight worry (schoolwork?), grief, a deep base of contentment. _That_ somewhere farther along, also male: intense concentration, veined with want, and joy, another thick line of grief.

I frowned, unconsciously spreading my fingers as I spread my power through the house. Grief, tangy and alcohol-harsh, everywhere. All of the few I touched bore it, four the deepest: the two I'd tasted first, and two more. Also male. What had happened here? It didn't reek of death, but there was absence, nagging absence, a space that wanted filling and couldn't be. The absence of someone who ... wouldn't return, couldn't return?

I felt the muscles along my back begin to contract, arching my spine in a futile attempt to escape. I'd pay for that later, but for now the sorrow drew me like a magnet, singing a siren song of need. This I could do, this I could help, here I could be of use.

A lash of physical pain, imperfectly controlled, glittered like fireworks behind my eyes, dragging my spine further into its arc, but freeing me from the pull of grief. My hands curled into fists, nails slashing into palms; the personal pain dragged me back into myself. _What_ was that? Who here ... 

_Me._

The alien thought jerked me down out of my ability, sharp as a shock of cold water. I snapped back upright, all the tension uncoiling up through my shoulders into a violent newborn headache. A gasp escaped me before I could control it, fingers groping for my temples.

"Are you alright?" The voice was low, gentle, Britishly accented. I looked up, hotly embarrassed, to meet soft, concerned blue eyes. I dropped my hands in a hurry, desperately wrenching my shields back up. What had I been doing, rummaging around in people's minds here? I was here _because_ someone had touched my mind.

I grasped my composure firmly, not deigning to notice the question, and held out my hand. "Summer Rainault."

"Charles Xavier."

The moment our fingers touched, I could taste it. So much power! Surely he could rip my shields down in a heartbeat, surely my thoughts would be laid bare before him. A telepath of amazing strength. This had to be the mind that had touched me, six months ago. And -- I glanced downward -- the mind that had spoken to me, just a moment ago. Charles Xavier was wheelchair-bound.

I looked back up, startled. A wry smile curled his lips as our handclasp relaxed. "Marvelous. You're a telepath, too. Like me."

With our skin still touching, I could feel his eager joy, his welcome. It would hurt to dispel it. I pulled my hand away, not wanting to experience his disillusionment first-hand, so to speak. "No," I responded softly. "Just an empath. I'm not like you." I couldn't look him in the eyes any longer.

Long, warm fingers curled about mine. "No, Summer. Not 'just.' Yours is a very special mutation."

A bitter laugh escaped me. "You have no idea, sir." I tried to draw my hand away. What had I been playing at, tracking down that fleeting thought-touch? Wheelchair or no, this man couldn't possibly understand how much pain -- my own pain, let alone the pain of others -- this 'special' mutation had brought me. And that had been before the advent of the fire.

His clasp tightened. "You are safe here, Summer. You're among friends. There is more than pain here."

I let the bitterness soften, seep away with a sigh. I looked back, meeting unexpectedly intense blue eyes. Almost against my will, I could sense a deeper link starting to form, slipping under my shields. Half to myself, I muttered, "Don't do that."

"Don't do what?" Both his hands clasped both my hands, now, increasing the linkage.

"There's a link, a permanent one, I can't control it. It's binding us -- you have to let go or I can't stop it." The secondary aspects of the link began to set in, bringing a blush to my face and whirling confusion to my thoughts. Even as I fought to close down the link, I prayed this Charles Xavier wasn't actively reading my thoughts, or, worse, that those thoughts weren't showing in my eyes. Always, always, the deepest binding brought with it a desperate hunger for greater intimacy.

Always it was trouble.

Once again a smile curved those finely-modelled lips, crinkling around his eyes. "A very special mutation indeed."

Desire hummed through my blood. My own emotions seemed to be setting up such a roar that, even as the deep bond settled into place, I couldn't tell what Charles was feeling. Or was that because as a telepath, he could shield out even the deep bond?

Or was it something else? I had to at least acknowledge the possibility before I discarded it.

Fine. Possibility acknowledged, and discarded. Time to clamp down on the secondary aspects, and hope I didn't set anything on fire. "You must let go now, Charles," I told him, breaking my gaze away from his eyes but unable to tear it away from his face entire.

"Don't do this," he replied. His hands clasped my wrists now, and although a swift jerk would break me free, I could not make myself do it. "Don't deny who you are."

"There's accepting myself, and then there's absurdity. I don't want to cross that line. Not here, with you," I snapped back. Now was not the time to surrender hard-won control.

"You can't lie to me, love."

Abruptly, I switched tactics. He wanted me not to lie? Fine. I dropped my shields, squeezed my eyes shut, and echoed all of my tangled swirl of emotions down the newborn deep link, willing them to crash into him. He jerked away, but I refused to let up. Let him see, then, why I fought to control myself, why my ability was not special, but a curse.

 _You can stop now._ The words echoed in my consciousness. There was stillness on the deep link. I locked my feelings back behind their iron bars in my mind, and opened my eyes. Charles gazed serenely back at me.

He said, "You're afraid because you can't control it."

Covering my face with my hands, I said, "Please excuse me. This isn't the impression I meant to give. I'm ... I think your being a telepath, and the ... touch, accelerated the link ... I am so sorry, sir."

"You must call me Charles."

"Charles," I corrected myself softly.


End file.
